Was the famous Birka warrior a woman?
For nearly 140 years she was a male warrior in the textbooks, until DNA showed two X chromosomes. Was she a warrior, though?
▶ Start the storyThe body, yes. The role, that is the argument. Grave Bj 581 at Birka, a Viking trading town in Sweden, holds a Norse woman, buried in the 10th century with two horses, an arsenal of weapons and other elite goods. The remains had been thought to be those of a male warrior since the grave was excavated in 1878. A 2014 bone analysis and a 2017 DNA study found them female, with two X chromosomes and no Y . Bone analysis had shown the same in the 1970s, but the findings were dismissed.
The 2017 study went further and called her a high-ranking female professional warrior, reasoning that a trained warrior had used the weapons and that they were not ceremonial. That conclusion was widely reported and is disputed. Critics say do not establish someone's social role or occupation.
They have specific objections. Fedir Androshchuk said the study ignored the disturbed state of the Birka graves and that the original excavator relied on nonprofessional helpers. The authors answered that every bone had been labelled in at the excavation, ruling out a mix-up.
Settled
- Two X chromosomes, no Y
- Buried with weapons, two horses and elite goods
Disputed
- That she was a professional warrior
- That the weapons were hers
- That the grave contents were undisturbed
The honest summary: a woman was buried with weapons and every mark of high status, and, as other scholars point out, nobody hesitated to call the grave a high-ranking warrior's while it was thought to be a man's. What it meant for her life is still disputed. And the of the sagas, written after the Viking Age, are considered fictional, so they cannot settle it.
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Recap
The Birka grave was a woman's, proven by DNA, but whether she was a warrior is still debated.
💡 A trick to remember it · Two X chromosomes settled who she was; no one has settled what she did.
Surprising fact · It was first shown to be a woman in the 1970s, but the finding was dismissed.
Sources (3)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (19 claims) cites at least one of these.